An Alternate View to Ma’at

29Jan

The more I dig into astral work, shadow work and crack in general, the more abstract my view on people (and all entities) becomes. My experiences have shown me that most, if not all of us have another “us” inside of ourselves. Sometimes this person looks just like us, sometimes they look entirely different. Sometimes we’re really good at hearing this person, other times we are completely oblivious.

But generally speaking, this part of us is usually a lot more well adjusted and big picture oriented than we are.

Some people might experience this part of themselves as a voice of reason in the back of their heads. Maybe some of us mistake our inner selves as the gods we worship (or perhaps the gods are screaming for our inner selves because we’re too deaf to hear our own voices). And in some cases, some people consider this inner portion of ourselves as being the divine within us (which I disagree with- everything is divine), or perhaps our ‘soul’. In FlameKeeping, this might actually be our inner flame- our inner guiding light that keeps us out of trouble and nourishes us.

Warning: Astral Crack ahead

To illustrate this point, allow me to relay my own experience. I recently stumbled across some other portion of myself in my astral/inner work. For our intents and purposes, let’s call her Chi. She looks nothing like my exterior appearance, and she acts almost nothing like me. Well, sorta- she does have that same ginger spark within her. However, she’s calmer. She doesn’t get as upset as I do over stupid things. She has good spoon management and knows how to stir a pot just so. She doesn’t stress over things that aren’t worth stressing over. She gives pretty sound advice, isn’t afraid to call me on my shit and many of her words have been along the lines of “simmer down, quit worrying so much”.

This part of me is so much older (and bigger) than I am- it’s probably a lot easier for her to say that. That’s probably why the gods are so much better at saying such things as well. I would imagine after watching a bunch of me’s running around like chickens with heads cut off you learn a few things. You really get an idea of what the larger picture is, and what you really need in order to survive or be happy.

It is my personal belief that it’s this part of ourselves that we should strive to touch, to hear. In the case for Kemetics, I think that this inner us is really our own ma’at.

We hum and haw about what ma’at is. Many of us can only narrow it down to “balance”. But we all know that balance is different for each of us. Even in terms of physical nature- we hold our center of gravity differently, and the way one person walks would make another topple over. This is also true of ethics and lifestyle. What works for me might not work for you. A person with 1,564,377,287 spoons is going to have a lot more energy to get things done than someone who starts off the day with 5 spoons. And at the end of the day- who is going to know the most about your own particular balance than yourself?

Perhaps we should focus on finding ourselves and focusing on figuring out what ma’at means for each of us, instead of getting into debates over what ma’at means to someone else you hardly even know. Much like with the concept of FlameKeeping- if you take the time to get in touch with your inner you (and of course, discernment comes into play here- make sure you’re tapping into the right voice), and you work on developing that- you become more balanced, more healthy (literally and metaphorically). If you’re healthier and happier because you’re able to live within your own version of ma’at, you’re more likely to have more spoons to use- your religious and/or spiritual practice can begin to flourish more. We become more productive, and the cosmos as a whole is better for it. They say that charity starts at home- and perhaps the gods are running many of their followers through so much shadow work because they know that we need to become sound and whole ourselves before we can build larger, better things.

They know that ma’at starts at home, within ourselves. We just have to dig a little bit to find it.

11 responses to “An Alternate View to Ma’at”

‘Perhaps we should focus on finding ourselves and focusing on figuring out what ma’at means for each of us, instead of getting into debates over what ma’at means to someone else you hardly even know.’

I think you hit the nail on the head very elegantly. Last night I was reading about the concepts (and deities) Ma’at and heka and how even the Gods upheld and employed these in Their own particular way. So transferring that to our human plane I think it still holds true. We all have different roles, different experiences and different environments. I think it comes down to the individual and their won discernment when it comes to different situations to be able to uphold Ma’at in their own way.
I’ve always believed the Gods gave us the tools we need to live in Ma’at: discernment, intelligence, education, various lessons, etc. Which of course are tailored to each individual. And it’s up to the individual alone to work with the gifts received and learn and grow. Whining and worrying and maybe even arguing about ‘how others do things’ can only lead to stagnation in one’s own path and distraction from his/her purpose and their own way of living in Ma’at.
We’re all cogs in this wonderful Universe, we just need to figure out where we fit and work in harmony with the cogs nearest us, so they can work with the ones nearest to them and so on.
Beautiful post as always, your elegant way of putting things is always a pleasure to read!
Best wishes!

I think that’s the reason why I have such a difficult time figuring out this ma’at thing in the first place. I may know, on the interior, what the fuck it is but my exterior isn’t quite in accord. And I have to figure out where the accordance lays and how the fuck to implement that shit. In the mean time, I get snarked at for daring to admit, “that person’s ma’at? It doesn’t fly for me.”

I agree with a great deal of what you are saying. In Naydler’s Temple of the Cosmos, he writes about how our heart is pure: its desires are always within Ma’at. If we can learn to listen to our hearts, we shall always have a place of quiet discernments within us; a true compass to guide us. Secondly, I DO think Ma’at is relative to our own selves and situations. That could be a reason why Ma’at is so hard to pin down. It’s not that Ma’at is “whatever you want it to be”. Just actions are just actions. Balance is balance. However, we don’t have that “objective” view point like the gods do. BUT, we do have our heart–a direct link to Ma’at and (I feel) that part of the divine in us. And I think that what is good for me isn’t good for you. What makes my head spin doesn’t make yours spin (and it is constantly spinning).

Ironically, I just finished a post on my blog on Ma’at. I came to the conclusion that we have to find our own ways to Ma’at that are culturally and personally relevant. I think it boils down to being confident enough to make your own decisions and trust your own analysis and value system while still remaining open minded enough when asked to consider other value systems and ways of action.

Before I deleted my blog, I ranted about the arguments about Ma’at (and other things) that had seemed to spring up suddenly on t’internets. One of my points was similar to cardsandfeathers comments about listening to our hearts. Morality is fluid and everyones’ ethics are different. Instead of setting down strict rules about what we as Kemetics can and can’t do, we should each be listening to what our hearts tell us is right, for ultimately it is our hearts that will decide our fate. I think the most basic rule we can follow is that suggested by Wil Wheaton “Don’t be a dick”